


Recreation

by for_the_love_of_wolves



Series: Whumptober 2020 [10]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drug Withdrawal, Drugs, Eichen | Echo House, Hurt/Comfort, Kind of Dark Stiles, M/M, Post Season 4, Pre-Relationship, They Are Idiots, like he says some mean things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27153427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_the_love_of_wolves/pseuds/for_the_love_of_wolves
Summary: "Stiles silently wonders whose idea it was. How many people know? Does the government know? Do they have other secret basements?Questions which will have to be answered later. He has other priorities right now. Like the one currently groaning in the back of his jeep."~Stiles finds out what Eichen House is really doing to the Supernaturals in the basement and decides to free Peter. Stiles brings them to a cabin in the mountains and takes care of Peter, when he goes into withdrawal.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Whumptober 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949101
Comments: 8
Kudos: 290
Collections: Moonlight and Cats, Whumptober 2020





	Recreation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober Day 22: Withdrawal

When Stiles sees Eichen House slowly disappearing in the rearview mirror, the flames consuming the roof lighting up the night sky, he isn’t even able to feel relieved. Because Peter is passed out in the back and he is _whimpering_. 

Stiles briefly thinks about going back and killing more people. But, no. He is never going to go back to that place. He also won’t go back to Beacon Hills. He takes a road that leads him far away, to the mountains. 

The noises Peter is making are freaking Stiles out. They mingle with the jeep’s tired rattling in a disturbing way. He considers turning on the radio, but another assault on his nerves and senses isn’t going to help him focus on the street. 

A part of Stiles is surprised at how calm he is. Is surprised that his hands wrapped around the steering wheel don’t tremble. That his heart isn’t pounding. But the other part of him, the part that was shattered and set together again while he had been possessed, isn’t surprised at all. That part feels satisfied.  
  
It was right to do this. A good thing. Especially, after what Stiles found in that basement … 

No wonder Eichen never allowed any visitors. No wonder the oderlies there always found stupid excuses why the patients shouldn't be visited. They had a dirty little secret.

They had a certain chamber in the basement. A chamber with a surgical table in the middle, surrounded by many interesting tools. It looked like a room in a hospital.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were doing down there. It was especially easy, when Stiles found the list. A list of the Supernaturals currently locked up at Eichen House and of the things being done to them.

Stiles got sick while reading. They were experimenting on the Supernaturals in their so-called “care”. Drawing blood, pulling out claws and fangs, making cuts and looking at organs, trying to figure out how they all tick. Stiles silently wonders whose idea it was. How many people know? Does the government know? Do they have other secret basements? 

Questions which will have to be answered later. He has other priorities right now. 

Like the one currently groaning in the back of his jeep. “Stiles?” Peter asks, his voice slurred. At least, he stopped whimpering. 

“Yep. It’s me. Go back to sleep,” Stiles says. “It’s a long ride.” As far away as possible. Not because Stiles is scared of the consequences of his actions. Nope. He’s not scared at all. He just wants - needs - distance. 

“Where are we going?” Peter asks. 

“Somewhere safe.” Stiles leaves it at that. Peter stares at him warily for a moment, but eventually he closes his eyes again, sagging like a puppet with cut strings. He doesn’t look well. His skin is greyish and there are dark circles under his eyes. Stiles knows they were pumping drugs into the werewolf, because he saw the not healing puncture wounds and when he tried to get Peter out of that cell, it was a frustrating struggle. Peter didn’t move. He just stared at Stiles with blank eyes, mouth slightly open. Stiles yelled and pulled, but only a well-placed slap in the face did the trick. Peter flinched violently and let Stiles pull him through the hallway, stumbling over his own shuffling feet. He was obviously drugged to the brim and Stiles has no doubt he will go into withdrawal soon. Hard.

He’s right. 

By the time they reach the cabin, Peter’s skin is covered in cold sweat and his breaths sound wet. Fuck, Stiles thinks. This is going to be a fucking rollercoaster. Well, at least Deaton gave him some stuff. After Stiles was very convincing. He had to be very convincing a few times already this week. He’s tired. 

Somehow, Stiles manages to get Peter into the cabin and to the bedroom, where the werewolf just slumps onto the mattress with a groan, burying his face in a pillow. He seems to fall asleep in the matter of seconds. 

Stiles goes to paint a mountain ash line around the cabin. Better safe than sorry, he thinks. While working, he remembers his talk with Scott. It was frustrating. Like most things with Scott nowadays. He really likes his best friend. That makes it worse. Because why won’t Scott just listen?! 

Stiles didn’t like the idea of putting Peter into Eichen House from the beginning. But what can you do if everyone else thinks it’s a great idea? 

He walked around with a feeling of wrongness for ages, until Scott finally seemed to sense his agitation. “What’s wrong with you, Stiles?” he asked, when they were having a pizza and video games evening. 

Stiles winced at the tone of that ask. It echoed in his mind, resurfacing memories. _What’s wrong with you, Stiles?_ his father had asked when he laughed about things he shouldn’t laugh about, like a murder. _What’s wrong with you, Stiles?_ Morrell at Eichen House had asked, in her tedious therapy sessions. _What’s wrong with you, Stiles?_ the voices in his own mind had called. They still ask. 

“I can’t stop thinking. It’s fucked up. It’s fucked up to throw someone who has been trapped in his own mind for six years into a cell alone, at Eichen House of all places,” he told Scott, who merely shrugged and rolled his eyes. 

“What else were we supposed to do, Stiles?” he asked. “Simply let him walk away after trying to kill me? He planned the deadpool …”

“Uh, yeah, when he was going insane with the pain of losing his family and being abandoned,” Stiles said dryly. 

“Still,” Scott said, “he worked with Kate behind our backs.” 

And that one hurt. Because that’s exactly what Stiles didn’t - doesn’t - get. Why would Peter work with Kate fucking Argent? With the murderer of his family? It doesn’t make any sense. 

Scott glanced at him and sighed. “Look … I know you and Peter spent some time together, for some reason. But you have to get that he was manipulating and tricking all of us. You too. He made it seem like he wanted to be helpful and then tried to take the power. That’s Peter. We can’t let him stir up another plan. Eichen House is the only place able to hold Supernaturals. So … it was kind of the only choice?”  
  
Stiles got where Scott was coming from, and he wasn’t entirely wrong, but still. He couldn’t shake off the feeling of wrongness. It intensified when time passed and no one was even trying to visit Peter. After having experienced the place himself, Stiles just couldn’t imagine that Eichen House would bother to get a traumatized werewolf - because although no one aside from Stiles wants to call Peter traumatized, he is exactly that - medication or even therapy sessions. He tried to visit multiple times. Every time, he was sent away with another dull sounding excuse. Apparently, Peter wasn’t stable enough to receive visitors. Stiles called bullshit. 

Of course he eventually couldn’t prevent himself from breaking into Eichen House. What he saw once he was in the basement almost made him puke. He immediately decided to do something. "Something" was getting Peter and every other supernatural creature out and setting the place on fire. He made sure the few actual patients wouldn't be harmed. The two men he had to kill weren’t part of the plan. Just … collateral damage? Yeah. That. 

When Stiles is done with the mountain ash, he goes back inside and cooks a huge pot of chicken soup. What a cliché.

* * *

On day one, Stiles is concerned. On day two he begins to get desperate. 

Whatever drugs they have pumped into Peter at Eichen, it is slowly being washed out of his bloodstream and it sucks. It really, really sucks. 

Stiles has read about drug withdrawal. But he still didn’t expect this to be that bad. 

For days, Peter just lays in bed, sweating and breathing shallowly. When his eyes are open, they are staring up at the ceiling blankly. Sometimes, he is murmuring words, but Stiles can barely hear them. He catches shreds of it. Sometimes, there are names. Like Talia, Derek - Derek a lot - or Cora. Sometimes, there are curses. More often, Peter is just whimpering and writhing. It's a disturbing sight.

Peter’s teeth are clattering. The noise freaks Stiles out. But he still bends over the werewolf and wipes the sweat off his forehead with a wet towel. Peter barely reacts to it. 

It is a struggle to get water or food into the werewolf, and Stiles almost gives up. Why are you doing this? he asks himself and doesn’t find an answer. He looks at Peter and sometimes hates him. But then he looks again, and the moment is gone. He cooks more chicken soup, until he hates the smell. 

* * *

  
  
On day four, Stiles wakes up to screams.  
  
They are high-pitched and filled with so much dread, it makes Stiles’ stomach twist. 

He stumbles into Peter’s room and almost runs back out, because Peter sits in bed fully shifted, his eyes gleaming blue in the darkness and a growl escaping his throat, before he slumps again, breathing heavily. 

Stiles stands there, not sure what he’s supposed to do. 

When Peter asks him, “is this real?”, his voice hoarse but finally clear again, he flinches in surprise. 

“Yeah. It’s real,” Stiles says and suppresses the sudden urge to count his fingers. Just … to be sure. 

Peter exhales shakily. He closes his eyes and Stiles thinks he should go back to sleep, but then, Peter makes a frightened noise and begins to claw at his own skin, murmuring something about “get them off, please get them off, _please_ ,” that makes Stiles shiver in horror. He has no idea what Peter is seeing. And he doesn’t know what to do.  
  
Somehow, he ends up sitting on the bed and reaching out to touch Peter’s arm. He winces when the werewolf suddenly grips his hand, squeezing it tightly and holding on to it like to a lifeline. Stiles is quite sure Peter would die of shame if he was aware enough of what he’s doing. But right now, he is probably not even aware which day it is.

Stiles remains sitting in the chair for a long while, although his back starts to ache and it feels like Peter is crushing his hand. 

* * *

“Mountain ash. Really, Stiles? You trapped us in this cabin?” Peter sounds mildly amused and Stiles guesses that’s a good sign.  
  
Peter is up for the first time in six days. He is still sweating and breathing heavily, his eyes sunken and body too thin, but he is walking, pacing the cabin, his nostrils flaring. 

“I’m not trapped,” Stiles says, not looking up from the book he is reading. “You are. I can leave whenever I want to.”

Peter is silent for a moment. Stiles doesn’t look up, but he’s quite sure he would find a hint of surprise on the wolf’s face. Everyone is surprised when he shows this side of him. 

Stiles turns the page. 

“What are we doing here, Stiles?” Peter eventually asks. 

Stiles shrugs. “You’re recovering.”  
  
Peter makes a huffing noise. He obviously doesn’t like the suggestion of weakness. But he finally stops pacing, sinking on a chair opposite the couch Stiles is sitting on. “Why did you get me out?” Peter asks. 

“I saw what they were doing there,” Stiles says calmly, a hint of anger trying to rise up to the surface. 

“You could have let them continue. I tried to kill your best friend,” Peter says. “I deserved it.” 

“You didn’t deserve _that_ ,” Stiles murmurs. 

Peter growls. The noise finally makes Stiles look up. Right into glowing eyes and gritted teeth that are just on the edge of being too sharp to be human. “Who are you to be the judge of that? Who are you to make decisions for me? You are just a stupid boy. Maybe I wanted to stay there? Maybe I wanted to die there?” Peter spits. 

Stiles shakes his head. “You need fucking therapy,” he says dryly. 

Peter snorts. “Therapy. Someone like me doesn’t go to therapy.” 

“No. Someone like you makes stupid mistakes and choices that destroy the few good things you have in life, right?” Stiles says calmly. 

Peter’s breath hitches. He glares at Stiles, who doesn’t feel scared at all. They stare at each other for a long moment, until Peter gets up and leaves the room without another word. Stiles thinks that feels like victory. But it doesn’t satisfy him. He looks back down at his book. 

* * *

“Scott just should have killed me,” Peter says, leaning against the wall and staring out of the small window while Stiles cleans the bathroom floor.  
  
He has a brief flashback to one of his own panic attacks that ended with vomiting too. His Dad found him back then. His Dad did the cleaning up while Stiles was sitting on the closed toilet lid, biting his own fist. 

Stiles shakes the pictures off and dumps the dirty towel in the bathtub. “Why did you do it? Why did you work with her?” he asks, kneeling and staring up at Peter. 

Peter shrugs. “She was there. It was an advantage.” 

“She killed your family,” Stiles says, ignoring Peter’s grimace. “You could have killed her again.” 

Peter snarls. “I would have killed her later.” 

“Hm,” Stiles gets up with slightly aching knees and washes his hands. He doesn't even know where the next words are coming from. They just spill out. “Or maybe, you liked looking at her. Maybe, you like to torture and self-pity yourself so much, you liked looking at her and feeling all that guilt again. Because you couldn’t save your family and …”

“Shut up, Stiles,” Peter says slowly. Hoarsely. 

Stiles does. He finishes drying his hands and turns to look at Peter, whose face is as white as paper. 

“I try to get it, you know,” he says, pushing his stupid mean thoughts away. “I … I thought we had something going. With all the time we spent together at your apartment, with you letting me borrow your books, with the movies we watched because you missed some real classics when you were in a coma. I thought you liked me. I don’t understand why it couldn’t go on like that. I try to get it.”  
  
Peter sighs. He looks away, avoiding Stiles' eyes. “You can’t. You can’t get it. No one can.”

“Pity,” Stiles says, crossing his arms, “because I’m not giving up. I want to get it. And see, if I want something, I go on until I succeed and you lose.” 

Peter looks at him surprised and then a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “I really wish it would have been you that night,” he says softly.

"I don't," Stiles says and turns away, hoping his heartbeat didn't stumble.

* * *

  
  
After seven days, Stiles gets a phone call. 

It’s Derek. Of course. His voice sounds strained. 

“Stiles. Did you set Eichen House on fire?” 

“Yep.”  
  
A long pause. Then: “What the hell, Stiles?!” 

“You should thank me.”  
  
“ _Thank you?_ You killed people there, Stiles. You helped Peter escape, you …”

“I didn’t help him to escape,” Stiles says coldly, “I rescued him.”  
  
“What …”

“They were experimenting, Derek. I saw their little torture chamber. Peter was drugged to the brim. It’s been a week and he’s still in fucking withdrawal. He’s weak like a kitten. If I’d left him there, they would have killed him eventually, when he wouldn't have been of use anymore. Like they killed other Werewolves, Werefoxes, Kanimas and others, when their healing factor couldn't catch up anymore. They had a list. I saw it. Read it. Are you telling me, I should have left Peter there?” 

Derek doesn’t answer. He just breathes for a long while. 

Stiles guesses the werewolf needs to stomach the news first. 

That’s okay. Stiles can be patient. And he knows Derek would have known if he’d lied. 

“Where are you?” Derek finally asks. His voice sounds different now. 

“Somewhere far away from Beacon Hills,” Stiles says. “For now.”  
  
“Tell me where. I’m coming.”  
  
“I didn’t invite you,” Stiles says coldly.  
  
“Stiles … Fuck, he’s my uncle. My family.”  
  
“You didn’t care when he was there for weeks. Alone with his mind again. You abandoned him again, like you did back then, right? When he was in a coma and going insane without pack.” Ouch. Stiles hurt himself a bit with these words, he doesn't want to know how they hit Derek. But he doesn’t regret them. 

Derek just breathes again. Faster now. Stiles can almost picture him pacing and glaring. 

“You know,” he tells Derek, idly playing with a chess figure in his hand. He played with Peter a long time ago and brought the board. One of the little things he brought from home. “I didn’t get how y’all could do that. But then, I remember your eyes when you realised I’m not the same anymore. You just wanted him out of your sight, so you don’t have to deal with the heavy stuff connected to him, right?”  
  
“Stiles …”

“Don’t _Stiles_ me.” Stiles’ fingers curl around the figure tighter. In his mind, words echoe. _What’s wrong with you, Stiles? What's wrong with you ..._ “When I was possessed and suffered a freaking trauma, you all spoke of therapy. Recovery. Well, Peter went through trauma too. Didn't he deserve therapy and recovery too? And don’t bullshit me with the _he’s always been a manipulative bastard and is always tricking us_ shit. I have heard enough of that. If you care about him, why don’t you try to help him? You never tried. You just let him be around because he was there, you watched while he was trying in vain to get what he needed from the pack. Scott didn’t even let him be the Left Hand we actually would have needed often enough. Because Scott doesn’t bother to learn about pack dynamics. And not once did you step in. So, are you sure you do care?” 

Stiles is a bit out of breath after so much talking and his fingers hurt from being wrapped too firmly around the hard chess figure. He relaxes them slowly and suddenly notices that Peter watches him from the door, eyes narrowed slightly and his face carrying a faint expression of surprise.

“I do care, Stiles,” Derek says quietly. “Will you let me see him?” 

“I think I’m going to let Peter decide if _he_ wants to see _you_ ,” Stiles says, looking at Peter and arching a brow. Peter nods after a moment. 

Stiles tells Derek the coordinates. “But don’t you dare tell anyone else,” he says calmly. 

“I won’t,” Derek quickly says and damn, Stiles likes the sound of that. Maybe a bit too much. Maybe. 

* * *

After two weeks, Stiles feels a shift.  
  
It is almost a full moon and Peter is getting stronger. He also doesn’t look so emaciated anymore. 

Stiles sits on the porch one night, looking up at the stars. They are stunning out here. 

Peter joins him after a while, silently sitting down close to Stiles and brushing shoulders with him.  
  
Stiles smiles and leans against Peter, making a noise of approval when the werewolf timidly rubs his cheek against Stiles’, scent-marking him. Stiles’ hand seems to move on its own accord as it finds Peter’s neck and applies gentle but persistent pressure. Peter sighs and makes a rumbling noise that sounds close to a purr.  
  
Stiles looks back up to the stars, leaving his hand where it is.  
  
It might be the start of something. 


End file.
